Shiny
by midwintersilver
Summary: "Harm? Do you ever think Renée's very - shiny?"


They're not mine, I'm just playing with them. I got this idea from somewhere - can't remember where - and needed to write it for these two.

* * *

"Harm?" came a girl's voice.

"Yeah, Mattie?" he called from the kitchen, tea-towel tucked into the waistband of his shorts as he mixed sauces in a frypan.

Mattie wandered in, following his voice – and holding a photo of him and Renée. "Do you ever think Renée's very – shiny?"

"What do you mean, shiny?"

"Not in the literal sense. But….look at her. I think you know what I mean." They stood together, heads bent over the photograph, for a second before Harm shrugged.

"I'm not quite sure I'm getting you, Mattie," he said with a chuckle, and she followed suit. "Set the table, will you?"

But lying in bed that night, he realised he understood what she meant. Renée was shiny. Staring out of photographs of them together, she caught the light like the sequins on her dress, sending lancing darts of brightness into his eyes. She was always put-together; always ready, always waiting. Her routine involved a regular drain of colour from her face and hair, to be replaced with unearthly platinum dye and thick foundation respectively.

She had a bottomless supply of immaculately pressed pantsuits in polyester blend to make her the unruffled centre of a wrinkle-free world. He could count on her to be dressed appropriately, if not to provide scintillating conversation. Her eyes shone with exaggerated emotion; her tears were excessive, the manoeuvre of a mediocre actor who had _learnt how to do this one thing_ and used it to make up for their lack of personality. She had a chirpy sexiness that belonged only on Disney shows, and a smile which caught at his heart like hooks – always polished, always demanding.

She liked him to be her knight in shining armour – liked to pretend she needed saving (an undeniable ego booster.) More often that not, she let him have his way. In short, she was everything he loved once, and now realised he didn't need.

Mac was not shiny. Mac had a steady glow like the beat of his heart – a pulse he could never live without. Mac's understated elegance made her the centre of any photograph without trying. Attraction was not her goal any more than it was his – the licks of fire in her eyes when they fight were not meant to be seductive. They were honest, open. Her emotions played at the surface of her features, sometimes suppressed but never fake.

At the forefront was an honest intensity which could eat like acid through to your bones, a characteristic which had always made her excellent in the courtroom.

Harm had seen Mac beautifully put together and spectacularly fallen apart, and he wondered at the excellence of her normality. Somehow, he could not imagine Renée in dirty blue jeans piggybacking a crying child. He didn't need to dream up Mac in that situation, because he'd seen it – the Roberts' garden, AJ on her shoulders, her unbridled laugh a thrum deep in his chest.

She did not need to strip her colour or change herself to be ready, and that colour – the rouge of her frustrated cheeks, the deep brown of her hair (he never did like blondes) put the video princess to shame. Photogenic as she was, photoshoots were her worst nightmare. People like Renée got on her nerves with their shiny chirpiness and their painted-on smiles. Mac had a job to do, a sailor to defend, an argument to win.

Her confidence, intelligence and pragmatism were always on full display. She had an opinion on everything, and was usually right – but nonetheless they would end up in argument over argument on everything from the correct strength for coffee to the Cold War. He realised it was that challenge that kept him going, kept his mind ticking over.

At crunch time, they were always together – back-to-back in the fight, side-by-side in the struggle. He trusted her with everything he was. But he also trusted that she would be there to play devil's advocate, to throw him every rhetorical line and opposing argument he needed to get to the bottom of something. He trusted that she would tell him when he was wrong before he embarrassed himself in the court room. He trusted her support and her honesty – trusted that her glow, his second heartbeat, would always remain in his life.

With maturity comes understanding. With Harm, it was the realisation he'd been resisting for years – the person he needed was right under his nose all along. It's easy to pretend you know what you like when the kind of person you seek out never makes you challenge yourself. Harm had spent years going home to people who let him be a certain kind of person – and working with someone who threw that back in his face.

The whole time, it was his interactions with the latter which consistently made him better. He'd dated all of these shiny girls, but he never needed shine. What good was electricity when he was electric? Mac was a lightbulb: a steadying outlet for that electricity which made it rein itself in. She was a constant beat, a steady rhythm, a thought constantly at the edge of his consciousness. She never flaunted her importance, but both of them knew it. And that was why, over and over again, he chose her in the end.

That realisation was both strange and euphoric. A steady thump began in his head, seeming to say "you need Mac. You need Mac" over and over again. He wanted to rush over there and tell her that he'd worked it out – he didn't need shiny, he needed her. But he realised she might not appreciate that thought at 2am – and besides, he'd have to find a way to frame it that didn't put him on the wrong foot from the beginning.

He'd have to find a way to slip those words from his head into the air between them – the words that trapped his tongue in a barbed wire snare. _I love you. I'd go to the end of the world for you. There's nothing I wouldn't do to keep you safe._ He practiced saying them, a mutter into crumpled white bedsheets, and felt like a 14-year-old about to go on his first date. And all the time those words: "you need Mac, you need Mac" drummed their endless ostinato in his head.

* * *

Knock knock knock. "Who is it?" A bleary eyed Mac asked, hitting out in the vague direction of her alarm clock with one hand.

"Harm."

"Hang on." She went to the door and unlocked it, a look of surprise and veiled alarm on her face. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes….no….kind of. Can I come in?"

"Sure…." She made it sound like a question, her mouth tilting up at the end of the word. At least she'd given him permission to have this conversation without a fight.

"Mac…" he started talking and suddenly the words came, flowing from his lips in an endless stream. "I was looking at a picture of Renée last night and I realised I've always dated the same kind of person. I've dated the person…" he breathed, knowing he'd never hear the end of this… "who let me have my way, who always turned up immaculately pressed and wanted me to be their hero. But the thing is…there's been one person in my life so far who I know I can truly rely on. One person who always challenges me, who never lets me embarrass myself, who I can trust to have my back in the crunch, to keep my secrets. One person who consistently makes me better, and that's you."

She started to interrupt and he put up a hand, closing the space between them by a few steps. She heard his silent plea, _I'm on a roll. Please don't make me get off it,_ and let him continue.

"I've dated all these shiny girls and you've always been there, that constant glow that keeps me going." He smiled, seeming to realise the strangeness of his words. "And this whole time…it's you I've been in love with. I…I really, really want to make this work."

Mac paused for a second, considering several responses. She could tease him about the implication that there was enough between them to call 'this' and say that no-one told _her._ She could step up there and kiss him hard, hoping that translated enough of her feelings. Or…she could act like an adult. An adult who knew how hard that was for him to say. An adult who was in love with Harmon Rabb Jr.

"You know, I have no idea how long I've been in love with you. You've been like a second heartbeat for so long…" He closed the gap between them in two steps and kissed her, long and slow. He tasted like mint toothpaste. She had to taste of grotty morning breath, but if he minded he didn't show it.

After a moment she disconnected, pulling her lips away from his with unabashed longing. "I know how hard that was for you to say," she whispered, "and I will do whatever it takes to make this work."

He released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Thank God, Mac." Her eyes flitted back to his lips, but he hesitated. "Can you promise me one thing?"

"What?"

"That whatever happens, I will always have you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Only if you promise me back, flyboy."

His deadly serious eyes bored into hers, and without hesitation he answered "Done."

"I promise," she answered, the trace of humour flitting from her face and her eyes swallowed in his. "Always and forever."


End file.
